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It seems we're being herded down a path where the only responses can be manic cheering or an enraged lashing out.

Trade union. Corporation. Big Government. Small business. Teachers. Strike. Every term seems loaded with such baggage that rational discussions feel like a mine field. Few bother navigating this mine field, so most discussions are degraded to the point of futility.

This wasn't always like this. Perhaps it's more reflective of myself than of the cultural climate, but it feels like something has really changed.

"Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." -George Orwell

"We feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom." -Slavoj Žižek

But thank you for trying, OP. Too few do.

Edit: Wouldn't be fair to Huxley to leave it at that. “Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and comercials.” -Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

I think the point OP was making was people through those terms around without knowing what they mean. You think we should have national health care, SOCIALIST!?!?!??! You want to increase federal spending on education, FASCIST!!??!?!? It used more as an insult and/or used to dismiss someone's argument.

No. In the 1930s, the American Communist Party was the strongest it had ever been. It wasn't until the 1950s, during the cold war and the communist witch hunts, that the word communist became the insult it is generally taken for today. The US actually found nothing wrong with the idea of communism until the Soviet Union took over most of eastern Europe.

It was more of a strategical measure, because the first world war had just ended. The point wasn't to destroy communism anyway. We were trying to put and end to the Bolsheviks. The US was by no means on good terms with Russia at that time.

Well, there was a moment when the Communist scare took a backseat to the Anarchist scare, then returned back to the Communist scare for the early 20th century. We like diversity in our blanket fear mongering.

If you are thinking the USSR etc are socialist, then this is exactly what we are talking about. Neither were socialist (and certainly not communist). Let's go over definitions:

socialism: "workers control the means of production"

communism: "classless, moneyless, and stateless social order"

Clearly neither were communist since they had states. Neither were socialist either since workers did not control the means of production --- in the 1936 constitution Stalin dissolved the "soviets", which were actual socialist institutions, being democratically elected governing councils. Before that, in 1917 Lenin's "Draft Regulations on Workers' Control" placed all industry under ultimate control of him and Stalin (in effect), rendering the soviets mostly powerless. Lenin preferred the term "state capitalism" in his own writing for the economics system employed by the USSR, which is how actual socialists typically refer to it.

The USSR was more like China is now, where there was such thick layer of government regulation on the entire market that it was still successfully controlled by the government by way of regulation and policy. The leaders of industry were essentially chosen by the regime.

Now, the problem with your definition of socialism is that it is flawed.

This is Merriam Webster's definition of socialism:

1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.

This is why the USSR of the time, as well as Nazi (literally translated as National Socialist) Germany were socialist.

My point is when socialists use the term "socialism" they are using it in its academic or original sense, of "workers control the means of production", not some colloquial sense as defined by M-W, which can mean all sorts of things, some of which (specifically "state capitalism", or the political economy advocated by Lenin's writings) indistinguishable from capitalism. Like "libertarian" the term has changed meaning --- libertarian used to be synonymous with libertarian socialism (originally communism, in fact), and thus "libertarian socialism" was a rally cry in Anarchist Catalonia --- tangentially, to come full circle back to the OP's point, this is in fact where where Orwell fought for communism (he later reformed into a democratic socialist). Actually, the newspeak in 1984 might have been exactly about this very shift in meanings, since the socialism he shouldered rifles for in his youth was being rebranded by statists ("EngSoc" in 1984) into something oppressive and counter-revolutionary!

If you aren't convinced modern socialists other than me use the term like this, please read Chomsky's writing on exactly this. I personally against capitalism since I think centralization and regulation tend to be bad for an economy, non-democratic power is corrupting, and central planning is too inefficient. The free market is more efficient than capitalism. The redefinition of the term socialism as you have pointed out has made the viewpoint of actual anti-capitalists such as myself extremely difficult to express, or seemingly contradictory.

The USSR was more like China is now, where there was such thick layer of government regulation on the entire market that it was still successfully controlled by the government by way of regulation and policy.

Well, the USSR gradually transitioned into that, but originally (<1950s) it was rather centrally dictated.

lol are you seriously using the dictionary defense? do you realize that mountains of literature have been written about socialism outside of Webster? it only makes you look obtuse and clueless when you have to resort to "well THE DICTIONARY says"

This is why the USSR of the time, as well as Nazi (literally translated as National Socialist) Germany were socialist.

you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. you need to read some actual books before you try to pontificate on an internet forum.

That's exactly the type of response the OP and many of us are criticizing. No one said anything about a socialist revolution or "paradise." The problem is that we have professional fear-mongerers who will make many people believe that anything remotely departing from free market trickle down capitalism is socialism. Also we are talking about the ideas that these mere words invoke in peoples' minds and how they get the most vulnerable to fight for the most powerful and wealthy. It's all fucking upside down.

Additionally, it implies that anything that might be construed as socialist is inherently bad or un-American. You can't look at just the bad and then jump to the conclusion that therefore there is no good.

The problem with the way you are speaking is that it has an air of "other people are too stupid to parse information without being duped or overcome with emotional responses, but I am not." It sounds elitist. It also ignores facts like 9 of the top 12 richest congressmen being political leftists. One could say that it is you who is fighting for the most powerful and wealthy. It works both ways.

You also have people who will defend tooth and nail that the bank bailouts, and particularly the auto company bailouts, as well as the single-payer healthcare philosophy aren't large steps in the direction of socialism. And when you have departments like the TSA acting the way they do, and the NSA building that huge datacenter in Utah, it starts to look like a direction that we obviously don't want to go down.

"other people are too stupid to parse information without being duped or overcome with emotional responses, but I am not."

You know what, I'm just gonna fucking say it. I don't give a flying fuck what you have to say about me after it. YES. SOME PEOPLE ARE FUCKING GULLIBLE MORONS AND I AM NOT. The government lied to justify the invasion of Iraq. Some people still don't believe this. The government created domestic terror plots just so they could foil them. Lots of people still don't realize this, or dismiss the evidence. The government is working to suppress dissent and some people don't see a problem with that. Some people think gay marriage will be bad for America (which is the only reason you should vote against something) despite the fact that all evidence points in the opposite direction. There are people who think that forcing a woman to have (and potentially raise) an unwanted child is better than giving a woman the power to choose. Some people aren't appalled that thousands of Americans are in jail (paid for by tax dollars) based on the prohibition of a plant that is based on blatant, proven lies. Some people aren't appalled that the police abuse and arrest people trying to record their actions without interference. Fuck those people. They are fucking gullible sheep. They disgust me.

See, you did it again. You used the buzz word "elitist" to essentially dismiss my response. You have also assumed that I believe that there is something inherently wrong with making money. You may not like it, but your paraphrasing of my response ("other people are too stupid to parse information without being duped or overcome with emotional responses...") just so happens to be true. That is not to say that many people don't have potential intelligence at their disposal, but anti-intellectualism, incuriosity, self-interest, fear, and materialism are great suppressors! We may not like to admit it for fear of being labeled an "elitist" perhaps.

Not only that, but the "academic" or precise definitions of socialism that actual socialists and Wikipedia uses are pretty far removed from what most people think. Chomsky describes how this came about in this article.

Socialism has nothing to do with the state, state regulation, central planning, or state control of industry. Instead, it simply means "workers control the means of production". Co-operatives and worker-owned businesses both are socialist institutions. Socialism is simply democracy in the work place. This is opposed to "capitalism", which strictly means capitalists or investors "own the means of production as private property", and is a top-down power structure as opposed to bottom-up. Libertarian socialists in fact are generally against the state, state regulation, central planning, etc, and favor co-operative businesses, holding that capitalism is antagonistic to the free market.

I noticed recently that a lot of people are calling Ron Paul a creationist. He isn't of course, he says he thinks evolution is a logical theory, but he wasn't there when it happened and he doesn't know if it is true or not. It seems that if you don't agree with mainstream evolutionary theory (what ever that is), then you are a 'creationist'. But the argument is a lot more nuanced than that.

Same with abortion. I can see good arguments on both sides of the issue, but why do you have to be either 'pro life' or 'pro choice'?

This kind of blinkered thinking mimics George W Bush's famous "You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists" argument. It is designed to cut off reasoned debate.

Sure, but science doesn't really work that way. Just like he wasn't there for evolution, he can't really see or has any intuition for, say, relativity - and neither do I (beyond putting atomic clocks on planes and having them fly around and trying to compare, which is roughly the same as looking at fossils and carbon dating)

But the explanation that makes sense is the one you "believe" in until someone demonstrates the contrary / finds a better explanation. In that case it really is "for or against" because you either are on the scientific side of accepting what biologists have been spending lifetimes trying to figure out - or you don't. (Edit: And well, disagreeing with evolutionary theory as-is takes about a phd in biology and disagreeing on finer points, which very few people can actually do)

Then again, I completely agree with your point for the other stuff that is much more nuanced, such as pro-life and pro choice and whatnot; I merely wanted to comment on the other thing.

Science doesn't work like that. Science is supposed to welcome skepticism and questions. Science isn't done by consensus, it relies on facts. But where there are no facts, it relies on theory. It doesn't mean that everyone HAS to believe the same theory... in fact, if that was the case, science would never progress.

In fact, believing a theory because it is the prevailing viewpoint is completely unscientific.

Also, before you jump on me to explain how evolution is Scientific fact, Ron Paul admits he does not know one way or the other. The only way he could know is by researching, and he hasn't done it. He doesn't care about it. So how could he know?

Suppose that Mr. Paul had said that he thought the germ theory of disease was a logical theory, but he doesn't know if it's true (since he can't see germs), and so he's also open to the idea that disease is caused by evil spirits. He'd be quite correctly mocked for that. And evolution is just as well established as the germ theory of disease.

Well, I haven't read the entire context to Paul's statement but "seems like a logical theory but I wasn't there" seems like something I'd say if I didn't have alot of opinion about and issue and wanted to focus the discussion on something else. So he believes there is a creator-god and that humans are a higher level of sophistication than other species, so what? This isn't 100% in line with the most rigorously scientific thought on evolution, but it also doesn't necessarily make him a Young Earther (which is what what Creationist is usually linked to in public discourse).

Have you read Parallax View or his new book on Hegel, or have you only read his political stuff (First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, youtube videos)? Zizek's critique of ideology is really heavy in regards to high theory, especially Lacan and Hegel. Your use of the phrase "too many people," is indicative of you being unfamiliar with Zizek's reading of Lacan's "subject supposed to know." I find it really fucking funny that you quote the world's most famous academic communist right after you quoted the guy who wrote fucking Animal Farm . . . seems odd to say the least.

According to Zizek, from the perspective of contemporary "post-ideological" society, the manic cheering and enraged lashing out are two sides of the same coin. Here you are saying that attaching only ideology vacates a term of its meaning, but Zizek's call for the repolitization of politics and his critique of ideology compete with your underlying notion of ideology leading to meaninglessness.

I'm from Grand Rapids, MI. I can't turn around without bumping into a serious Calvinist or Catholic. Zizek gets his theology books published out of here. I may be a well-read, pretentious ass, but my being defensive of my favorite philosopher's work has nothing to do with me wanting to show off. If you don't understand the Hegelian and Lacanian aspects of Zizek's critique of ideology you will literally misread and misapply almost everything else he says, and if you have no problem cherry picking without understanding the context of Zizek's body of work, you're no better than hypocrite Christians picking and choosing which passages of Leviticus to adhere to.

I was in Zuccotti park the week after he spoke there. There were a lot of grad and undergrad students there, especially in the day time; I was not the only Lacanian or Hegelian present. Kind of presumptuous of you. I'm not defending against a deliberate attack, but an inadvertent bastardization. Instead of taking my advice on where you could possibly look to better understand the message of the man you claimed inspired you, you took the opportunity as an insult and got defensive. You do the people you quote a disservice when you are too lazy or stubborn to follow through and read for the context from which their flashy quotes arise. Those "profound formulations" didn't develop in a vacuum, and the anti-gay passages in Leviticus are surrounded by other demands, as well as the other four Books of Moses; your use of Zizek in this context is like a Christian deriding gay marriage while wearing a cotton/polyester blend. Also, Christian can actually read the whole Bible, just like you could read substantive Zizek books like The Sublime Object of Ideology or The Parallax View if you wished to shore up your understanding of his work.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Televised media doesn't lend itself to introspection after perception, nor a sufficient amount of time to fully grok the news story after reception due to suggestive emotional cues as well as catering to brevity.

And brevity, boys and girls, is why "rational discussions feel like a mine field;" people take the ambiguous information they're given, accidentally misinterpret it because of its ambiguity, then get mad when no one understands their position. Why? Because we're beginning to communicate with the same brevity and lack of specificity as news stations, specifically, and television, in general.

Where, thankfully, we have the opportunity to pause and consider, if we so choose. Obviously, the Internet currently caters to brevity, but I see no reason it needs to. It will be interesting to see if the currently brief Internet will stay that way, if catering to 30-second experiences is a fashion that will fall in and out, or if our discourse will in fact be shaped by our medium leading to (true) social reform.

does it "need to" cater to brevity in some sort of categorical sense? of course not, but most real world trends would indicate a definite shift in that direction. hell, the very existence of tl;dr as an acronym is sad, much less that one's necessary for a four-sentence post.

I'm on the fence about TL;DR. I agree with you in principle, but I think in practice a well formed TL;DR could be used to draw in a reader who might otherwise be intimated by a looks-long-but-isn't-really-long post.

I think that's a reasonable point. They are kind of log-lines for the larger statement, it just bothers me that the way they were started seems to be that a bunch of stupid douche-bags didn't want to read too many lines of someone's post, so they would respond that it was too long and they didn't read it.

I hope you're right, but I'll be honest here - I believe television is such utter shit not because of anything inherent about the technology or economics, but because it adapted to fit our meat-brains. I believe the internet will (and perhaps already has) made that same change.

How many of us take how much time on each link on the internet? How much abstract, novel information is contained in every one? How often do we bounce from gif to youtube showing us the same contrived images repurposed in a slightly new way to tickle our minds just enough to keep us distracted? Do we engage with anything more deeply on facebook or reddit or anywhere else online, compared with what we watch on television? Aren't we still filtering our sense of reality through an electronic screen?

Here's where I hold out hope: I read a study a few weeks ago about how people's brains are fundamentally shifted by literacy. That is, the way we think of the world is dramatically altered by the ability to consume written information. As the internet evolves, I hope we can come up with something as elegant as the written word to once again realign the way we think, hopefully in an empowering way.

The internet seems to be the greatest tool at our disposal for true political discourse. It's forced me to stop and really digest the information that I'm looking at, and has given me the unending resources to research, if need be.

No. Quite contrary, everyone in the west has the "information overload" going on. I recall discussions about it when the Internet started to break through in normal homeholds. I thought it was ridiculous idea in Web 1.0, where Google didn't yet exist and the best sites were still mouth-to-mouth knowledge and Internet portals with link collections like Makupalat, Yahoo & MSN were all the rage.

Now the information overload is everday reality. Almost everyone carries a phone in a pocket which aggregates "social networks" and everything else one wishes for. You get the 140 character tweets, sms, email, Facebook status updates, Google+ feed, daily news right in the official apps and even your newspaper in digital format. In addition to that you don't have to remember or really learn a thing, just few words and Wikipedia has it for you and Merriam has the definition for a word you don't know. For spare time listen to nearly unlimited music in Spotify on random and watch few million silly videos in Youtube.

When amount of information literally at fingertips is that massive, people start to use time on only the things they want to see, hear and read - why use time on "irrelevant" or outright offensive content, right? That is the real problem that arises from information overload. People create a comfortable cocoon for themselves in the web and cuddle in it - also known as "the Internet bubble". In addition to people themselves doing it, all the major search engines & social media do that without vast majority of users knowing it based on what links you click, see, watch, like, fav and bookmark. Information has become so tailored and exact that it is meaningless, because information without context means nothing. Books, libraries and Internet portals have the now much frowned-upon feature of branching and flowing without user consent, and the element of unpredictability. They have things in them people do not agree or like, and people are easily exposed to ideas they couldn't think of by themselves. That largerly doesn't happen anymore.

Information became meaningless not because of orwellian newspeak, but because it doesn't reach those who need it most - the ones who have locked themselves into a mental cage where they only see & hear what they want to.

I killed my facebook page years ago because time clicking around is just dead time. Your brain isn't resting and it isn't doing. I think people have to get their heads around this thing. All this unmitigated input is hurting folks. My opinion.

Yet when I complain on reddit about how certain subreddits and levels of discourse are slipping into being just fleeting and throwaway jokes, the response is always "Come on, don't you like a little fun? What's wrong with just killing some time?"

People create a comfortable cocoon for themselves in the web and cuddle in it - also known as "the Internet bubble". In addition to people themselves doing it, all the major search engines & social media do that without vast majority of users knowing it based on what links you click, see, watch, like, fav and bookmark.

People knowingly do it, and it's encouraged on reddit! How many times have you seen this: "Tired with /r/politics? If you're liberal, go to /r/liberal, if you're republican, go to /r/republican" or whatever. The users of reddit encourage you to create your own cocoon instead of make the biggest opportunity for discussion better for us all.

The real hit was taken during Bush's reign. It took 8 years to demonize and demoralize the idea of truth and logic. Couple that with a 24-hour news cycle of Fox News propaganda, and you've got a nation ripe for takeover. So that's exactly what happened.

The thing to keep in mind is that as the education levels and intelligence levels drop across the board for a nation, vocabulary is going to have less value...words lose meaning...they become whatever the media wants them to become.

So abusing terms like 'terror,' 'socialism,' 'death panels,' 'fascism,' etc. is all part of the plan.

The ironic part of this is that so few people see this for what it is: the means to an end. This is a necessary part of taking over and hijacking a nation. People think that sounds like hyperbole but it's not. We're entering the age of the plutocracy and the corporatocracy and that cannot happen until the American people are dumbed down and actually learn to embrace the things that are harming them.

Of course the first step was to create a nation of cowards. That was easy enough after 9/11. In 8 short years, we went from a country of rational, sane (for the most part) people to a bunch of whining kids begging the corporations to protect us from the boogeymen and from ourselves.

And we got what we asked for. There aren't enough Americans asking questions, there aren't enough who care, aren't enough who will get off of their asses out of concern. So we get what we ask for.

I honestly believe (and I have been saying this for 5 years) that if Fox News didn't exist, our nation would be in a much, much better state economically, socially, etc. And I also firmly believe (and believe that it can be proved on paper fairly easily) that the republican party has done more damage to the sovereignty of this nation than all terrorist groups combined in the past 30 years.

Food for thought. Not exaggeration, no hyperbole necessary. We are watching a country in fast decline. All you have to do is take notes.

No. We're a society of feckless public relations and marketing experts. Because our government and much of our society would rather do as little as possible to sweep issues under the rug than face them head-on and fix them.

I work in marketing, but Jesus Christ it has its place. Strategic PR and candy-coating marketing has no damn business in a government's interactions with its people. None.

The formatting is a bit shitty, but here's an example of an Aldous Huxley essay on this topic in relation to the word 'force' that I always really enjoyed. We've dealt with loaded terms and semantic bullshit for a long time, but maybe it's gotten worse. When I try discussing politics, I often find that I agree with someone on something we were just arguing vehemently on because of the way words are defined and redefined.

It's amazing how much mileage the government has gotten out of their "we must protect freedom by curtailing our freedoms" mindset. A lot of people these days don't even bat an eyelash anymore about warrantless wiretapping, torture, etc. Bills like SOPA and CISPA don't even register with them as issues, and the idea that the government could potentially abuse these sorts of laws is seen as laughable or paranoid. Never mind that they'll hear something on the news about China's internet censorship, for example, and say to themselves "Oh, how terrible!"So while flat-out ignoring the string of bills like CISPA.

Newspeak was an exaggeration of a real-world phenomena Orwell discussed in his essay, Politics and the English Language, which is one of the most important essays ever written and is relevant to the OP.

The concept here is the over complication of language to reduce the effectiveness of speech by giving too many possibilities of what the person is trying to say, or by confusing people given the multiple ways in which a sentence could be construed. It is not the over simplification of language to prevent the orator from putting forward their view, it is the over complication to prevent the listener from comprehending the orator's point of view. It could be seen as a way of controlling speech, but not in the way that Newspeak was.

As for the speeches politicians speak in simpler terms because it is more accessible to a larger proportion of the population right? The higher the level of their speech the smaller the proportion of the population who follows it gets.

It is the same for any situation. If you are talking to a group of experts in your field about a project you are working on you will speak at a very high level. If you are talking to a group of children about the same project you will speak at a very low level. It is about the target audience, not the orator's abilities.

My favorite for newspeak was the brief time I spent as an educator. "We utilize a standards-based, data-driven, wholistic environment to promote the excellence of the student." "Our educators engage in purposeful, practicable professional development." For the most part, if you hear a principal say something that sounds like bullshit, or says in 12 words what you could say in 3, you are going to end up at a 2 hour meeting where administration is going to ask you to do some pointless thing largely unrelated to teaching that's going to take an incredible amount of time away from grading and planning; all so they can jerk off about it at a regional meeting and look like a hotshot to their peers. Not fucking joking. I was force to attend a 40 minute seminar after school, unpaid, so some people from scholastic could explain Venn Diagrams to me. They had a fucking Power Point for it. Then they had us break off into little groups and discuss how we could use Venn Diagrams in a classroom. Like we were retarded. If there's a mandatory meeting in a school, and someone is setting up a projector, start coaching something. Right then.

The Bush-era emergence of "American Folks" as a description of average Americans, with its unfortunate alliteration to the "Deutschen Volk"--a phrase made world-famous by no less than Adolph Hitler--has always disturbed me.

There's something very subversively nationalistic about that word, and every time I hear it I feel Americans are being subconsciously propagandized without even realizing it.

That's right, Godwin has entered the thread, but please not I'm not calling anybody a Nazi just for using that word; but simply pointing out that Nazi Germany used similar jingoistic phrases to create an us-versus-them feeling in the populous.

The concept of Newspeak, where a government withdraws words from existance, thus preventing its citizens from understanding or thinking of the concepts which those words entail, closely resembles a scientific hypothesis popular at the time of the writing of 1984 (in 1948) called linguistic relativity. More specifically it resembles the principle of linguistic determinism, which is the strongest form of linguistic relativity.

To quote Wikipedia (not the best source but time):

"...linguistic determinism, which would hold that language entirely determines the range of possible cognitive processes of an individual"

Sound like Newspeak? I certainly think so. "Weak" linguistic relativity, which is about how our language influences our thought, is fairly evident in the world around us. For example, French-speakers must specify a gender when they speak (voisin or voisine) whereas English speakers don't have to (neighbour). Thus the same sentence in both languages (I ate lunch with my neighbour yesterday and J'ai déjeuné avec ma voisine [female]) will influence the thought of the listener in different ways; one could argue that privacy as a whole is therefore thought about slightly differently in French than in English.

However, linguistic determinism (the one like Newspeak) is not as evident. It is mostly disregarded today; Stephen Pinker's book The stuff of thought runs through some of the evidence against it and is a good read. The idea in Newspeak of us being unable to think certain thoughts due to limitations in our language is never going to happen (would an English person who had never heard the words schadenfreude or déjà vu have trouble understanding these concepts at all?)

In terms of what Op points out, where soundbite politics seems to be more prominent nowadays and seems to be narrowing people's world view, I would beg the question: is the language itself what is causing it? Is the soundbite media causing people to think in black and white terms, or is our soundbite language a reflection of the way we are thinking in the first place? (In other words, has the soundbite language caused our thinking to be reshaped, or is our increasingly trivial thinking the cause of the soundbite language).

If the language is shaping the thinking then I guess you could call it Newspeak. The latter idea seems more plausible to me - our trivial thinking is our fault, and is then reflected in our language. There's no black and white answer! There are other interesting questions. I do think that the internet is reshaping the way we think and remember and can rewire our brains, and the internet is deeply tied up with language and what OP is talking about.

Tl;dr (if anyone actually reads this, which I doubt) its probably not Newspeak in the strongest sense of the word, but I think triviality and soundbite culture are linked in some way.

Edit: "We feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom." -Slavoj Žižek
bearsquared's relevant quote sounds like Newspeak a.k.a. linguistic determinism. Again, my opinion is that language does not limit thought as strongly as this.

With all do respect, this post is mostly nonsense. Most of the sentences are fragments which lends your writing a sense of drama and intensity, but at the same time it detracts from the readers' abilities to derive a coherent argument from your post. What you have created is a persuasive but basically meaningless passage which most readers will undoubtedly agree with, but without really knowing what they are agreeing to. For instance, when you say something like, "it feels like something has really changed" or "this wasn't always like this", you are being incredibly vague. You don't tell us what has changed or what things used to be like, you just make the blind assertion that something bad has happened even though you don't know what it is or what could be done about it.

That being said, a lot of the content in your post is deeply problematic. The list of terms in the first fragment which you describe as "meaningless" are in fact, quite full of meaning. The meanings of these terms may be in a constant state of evolution, but so too are the meanings of all words in any language (example; compare the use of the term 'fag' in the US and the UK). Just because the terms you pointed out are relevant to politics does not mean that the terms are somehow meaningless or maliciously controlled. This is not 1984.

Next, you bemoan the existence of sensationalism and narcissism as pervasive forces in society. I'm really not sure what you mean by narcissism being everywhere (once again, your writing is quite vague). However, I would like to point out the irony of decrying sensationalism in the midst of a post which is, in literally every way possible, sensationalist itself.**

I take serious issue with you stating that, "we're being herded down a path where the only responses can be manic cheering or an enraged lashing out". First, who is responding and what are they responding to? Are you referring to the Arab Spring? This part of your statement is too vague to fully comprehend. However, if we put those questions aside we can see that this statement is self-falsifying. Think. You are making an uncensored and totally free statement publicly and safely in a society which, despite all of its flaws, allows you to do so without any inkling of punishing you for your views. How can you use such a sacred and vital opportunity to claim that you aren't allowed to do exactly what you are doing at the moment that you are claiming to be barred from doing it?

I like the fact that you are clearly thinking and trying to advocate an impassioned viewpoint on current events. However, your views themselves seem to be poorly refined; especially compared to your writing style, which is not bad. The end result is you coming off sounding like an ill-informed teenager who knows how to argue but has little experience with the world (s)he is arguing about. If you would like to respond with a more clear explanation of your worldview, I'm always down for a Reddit-debate.

**I do believe that sensationalism in the media is widespread and problematic as it greatly undermines the press's ability to carry out their intended purpose of spreading credible information

For starters, what the hell is 'morality' doing in there? And how are these things meaningless? We can comfortably say, for instance, that Bernie Sanders is a liberal, or that Rick Santorum is more conservative than Mitt Romney. Just because ignorant people throw around 'socialist' and 'fascist' as epithets doesn't mean they are meaningless terms. Interestingly enough, later on you seem to be complaining that political terms have too much meaning attached to them. Make up your mind: are they meaningless or do they have too much meaning?

140 character limits on one major social tool of our day. Sensationalism and narcissism everywhere.

...Yes, Twitter certainly is the downfall of civilization. As for sensationalism, it's always existed in the media. Human nature doesn't change. Think of William Randolph Hearst. Think of early political pamphlets. Hell, think of Roman political graffiti. And your use of the term narcissism is so nebulous and out-of-place that I don't have anything to say against it, because I have no idea what you mean.

Trade union. Corporation. Big Government. Small business. Teachers. Strike. Every term seems loaded with such baggage that rational discussions feel like a mine field.

These words have always had baggage attached to them. Political labels always do. Political debates are pretty much always furious and heated, from Athenian democracy to the present day. Incidentally, it's worth pointing out that if you feel like you can't have a rational discussion, either something's wrong with you, or you're talking to the wrong kind of people.

It seems we're being herded down a path where the only responses can be manic cheering or an enraged lashing out.

We most certainly are not. Again, this isn't 1984.

tl;dr: this is empty hyperbole without any grounding in historical or political fact, and the comparison to Orwell is completely misplaced.

What is "human nature"? How are you able to isolate "human nature" from socially learned behaviours? I don't really understand why you are so dumbfounded by the OP's use of the word "narcissism" in the context it was used. Not only is narcissism abundant and promoted in society, but Twitter is a prime example of its materialization.

I'm able to isolate human nature from socially learned behaviors, to some degree, by observing that sensationalism has always colored the distribution of information throughout human history, among countless very different cultures. It's always been a thing. To quote you, "Fear, ignorance, greed, and anti-intellectualism have always permeated society." I think you could call these things part of human nature, but whether or not it's part of human nature, whatever that might mean, is secondary. The relevant point here is that sensationalism being "everywhere" is not a new thing, not part of some new era that we're slipping into.

As for why I'm "dumbfounded" by his use of the word narcissism, it's because I have no idea what he's getting at. He's offering no argument for why this alleged narcissism is so bad; exactly what problems does it cause, what negative affects does it have, and how? Simply saying "narcissism is everywhere!" is not very useful.

One of the best analogies I've heard for it originated on a private message board I used to visit. We used to call ourselves "pro-skub" and "anti-skub," with no definition of the terms whatsoever. You couldn't be on the fence when it came to skub, you had to have one of two positions, anti- or pro-, and it didn't actually mean anything. It was like our own little personal mockery of the political system.

Every age has its terms that serve these purposes. This is not new, it was present in Rome and Greece between 2 and 2.5 millenia ago. These are our buzzwords, in 50 years several of them will have changed, but not all. Think about the force behind the term "Communist sympathizer" that existed 60 years ago, versus today.

Though I fully agree with the OP's stance, I think we tend to faultily believe that things were always better in the past, or as he or she states, "this wasn't always like this." Yes it was. Fear, ignorance, greed, and anti-intellectualism have always permeated society. The main issue to me is the intelligent and critically minded people who have foresight and the ignorant and apathetic masses (including those in power) who have no notion of foresight but bask in the fale-righteousness of hindsight. Today, it is readily "agreed" upon that segregation was abhorrent, except that many people who mimic this societal outlook would have been championing Jim Crow just 50 years ago. The robotic police who violently repressed union activists going back to the late 1800's now benefit from unions. I could go on and on. I know what I am stating is obvious, but I guarantee that in a few decades from now, the masses will look back on issues pertaining to health care and gay rights for example, and will shake their heads in disbelief that anyone could have fought against these fundamental human rights. It is disillusioning living in a sea of disinterest, incuriosity, idiocy, mythology, and dogma, and watching professional manipulators exploit these very characteristics of society.

That doesn't sound like Newspeak but rather the opposite. Newspeak is the replacement of words that convey complex ideas with words that convey simple ideas. Torture -> enhanced interrogation is one example.

All of the other examples represent the attachment of complex and often extreme ideas to words that used to convey simple ideas. "Corporation" used to mean "publicly-traded company," but now you can't say it without implying a lot more about the character and political influence of said company. "Teacher" means "one who teaches," but modern usage of the word invokes either images of overworked civil servants desperately trying to save future generations from a corrupt system or overpaid lazy slugs who cheat taxpayers out of their money, depending on who you talk to.

The problem isn't that we don't have the words necessary to convey controversial ideas; the problem is that too many of our words have become associated with controversial ideas.

No. People with different ideas have always used different words and definitions. This isn't by any means a new phenomenon. Newspeak was specifically a centrally designed and coercively-imposed language intended to sustain a specific set of ideas by only allowing that set of terminology to be used.

That you're comparing different terms used by different groups for the same thing is exactly why this isn't Newspeak. If it were, you wouldn't know the word "torture," you'd only be allowed, or able, to call waterboarding "enhanced interrogation" and that would (supposedly) limit your ability to criticize it coherently. Some terminology may be more stupid or disingenuous than others, but that doesn't make it Newspeak.

What you're seeing is that not everyone uses the terminology of your ideas, but rather terminology you consider deceptive because it's based on what you see as the wrong ideas. So, if anything, you're just frustrated you can't impose your own "Newspeak" on everyone else.

Thank you for posting this. Far to few people seem to understand that the purpose of Newspeak is to limit thought. The fact that each of us understand most of the terms the op is complaining about on multiple levels suggest, as you pointed out, the very opposite of Newspeak.

"...We turn off our minds for the same reason that we turn off our lights: we want to sleep in darkness.

Every ruling group wants the masses to be docile, uncritical, unquestioning, unthinking. Virtue, therefore, has always been associated with ignorance and inarticulacy. In view of the exacerbated official anti-intellectualism of the last quarter-century, bad grammar is now a badge of safety, an assurance that we are real folks, not pointy-headed innaleckshals or elitist snobs. The basic cause of bad writing is not lack of brain power but lack of courage."

Politics is in crisis, we have been manipulated by memetically engineered newspeak meant to disempower us, and it worked. We have lost truth, we are adrift in a sea of meaningless language, we have information overload and emotional burn-out. And while I want to think that the internet is a great tool for social justice.....there are other problems. The internet has brought us all closer in a superficial way, but at the same time I think personal relations have been on a grave decline. People are so reluctant to communicate with one another directly. Instead we speak from great distances, via limited texting options or anonymously from social media platforms. Rather that having friendships we seem to be performing the appearance of friendships for each other. I miss real life.

That happened in the early nineties, at the most recent, man. You could make the argument that it started with Reagan or Nixon, but really the right-wing opposition of Clinton began the golden age of American newspeak.

Yes, and in addition, the cell phone in your pocket (assuming you are from the US, I dont know about other countries laws), while it does not have a video interface you can see from your end, has the ability to listen to you using speakerphone, and the function does not show any hint that the phone is recording you. You can turn your phone off, it will not turn on, but it will record you. Provision in the patriot act. All cell phones since have that functionality.

Reports are starting to come out, and most state "law enforcement" agencies are regularly using GPS and this "wiretapping" to do "general surveillance" without any form of warrant, and with no clear explanation as to why.

The only way to ensure you are not being recorded in your own home (provided you own a cell phone) is to remove the battery from your phone and wait 30 or so seconds.

freedom isnt free, what? we must pay for freedom? the very definition of freedom is a thing that is free. but i guess it sounds good. another one is god gave us free will and god loves us unconditionally . you must accept jesus or go to hell. because you have the free will to accept or deny right? except that this is directly analogous to a threat. a condition. the choice is submit to me or face eternal torture. thats a dictators edict. thats a condition of a wife beater. thats not love unless youre from the bronze age where selling your daughter is moral and above all economically viable common sense.

We need the Job Creators to defend us from socialist Nazis and their death panels. Big Government brought us partial-birth abortion; tax relief for working Americans will end unemployment. Obama is a Kenyan Muslim. He doesn't understand hard work, freedom, or family.

I would say the opposite, you know the treatise "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"? If anything this is an age of over-production, phrase become loaded due to anyone being able to pick and choose what biases they want to here, this leads to massive social echo chambers of media, where your side is divine and the others are evil, when two echo chambers collide we have the effect you're talking about.

Simply language has gotten so advanced through globalization and standardized education, through mass politics and media that there's too much of it to keep narratives straight, hence "the battle of the buzzwords". So completely the opposite of Orwell, a massive increase in language keeps us agitated instead of a reduction of language to keep us passive.

I like when CNN says this or that measure failed to get enough votes in the Senate. Never elaborating that the measure did achieve a majority, just not enough to break the GOP filibuster. If your part of the one percent your just part of it. Go OWS.

I'm a reasonable person, but I don't want to think about that. I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable, scientific explanation for history's first examples of total progressive structural collapse that isn't controlled demolition. I don't know what it is, but I'm sure it exists. I don't know why, I just am.

What for old people is an amazing flood of information beyond our wildest Star Trek fantasies is being interpreted by youth as miscalculated Newspeak. Well, get me a versatile flat top tactical and we'll riot against the regime like weed and insect control gone wild. The love story's over, the romance is gone. Our leaders maintain a 1960s-era socialist rhetoric like tax-exempt billionaire rebels engaged in guerrilla war and all we got is this website to keep us from choking back tears or going crazy in a boot-stomping frenzy as we wander alone in a windy land of soil blowing from vast tracts of unpaved land where the air is filled with wind-borne fecal matter dropped by legions of feral street cats. edit: "reintegrating" reality check

I think we live in uncertain times and 1984 is a book about uncertain times. Don't forget that book was written in 1949, when times were also uncertain. Just like they were uncertain in the actual year 1984. Just like things will be uncertain in 2084. Every decade looks shitty, but that's because we're worried about what might happen, which is exactly why every decade looks shitty when you're in it.